Business

24Mar2014

Postgraduate students of the MSc Business, Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (Mbite) programme recently travelled to Bangor University in Wales to participate in a joint collaborative programme with the Bangor MBA Environmental Management students. The student groups were required to participate in a ‘live’ consulting project with participation from companies in the green technology sector in Wales. The programme was supported by the GIFT INTERREG research project and included evaluation by an expert panel comprising lecturers from the Schools of Business and Science in Bangor and WIT as well project representatives from the GIFT programme.

The mBITE programme is to develop and transform the solid grounding science, engineering, enterprise-orientated social science and technology graduates received in their undergraduate programme into a platform for business success. Employers and the entrepreneurial economy are increasingly calling on technologists (in the broadest sense) to be innovative strategic thinkers with broad commercial, organisational and marketing capabilities.

This programme broadens out graduates from their specialist domains, making their core skills more transferable and useable; whilst building new skills in sales and marketing, business innovation, product development and management. The programme runs in three distinct phases- the first semester is an MBA-style boot camp; quickly bringing graduates up to speed with a broad business curriculum, all with an orientation towards entrepreneurship, innovation and technology. The second semester focus allows students to integrate their learning through a business simulation module and other specialist business modules. Embedded in the programme is an ethos, culture and set of interactions that expose students to business and market development practice.

Dr Ray Griffin, Course Director for the mBITE programme says “This year we partnered with the Green Innovation Future Technology (GIFT) network to jointly deliver a module with Bangor University MBA students. The initiative, funded by the INTERREG Ireland Wales programme offers students the opportunity to work together over a short period on a business consulting assignment. While groupwork is always challenging, working with motivated students from a different university as well as ‘wicked problems’ like climate change from a hard-nosed commercial perspective brings a novel set of challenges that make it exciting”.

According to Dr Denis Harrington, Head of Graduate Business at WIT “we are delighted to be collaborating with our colleagues from the Schools of Science in WIT, Bangor and at UCD in the co-ordination of this joint postgraduate programme. The initiative provides an opportunity for our postgraduate students to engage in live consultancy projects and gain exposure to research developments in the green technology sector.